


To woo the savage beast

by Sand_Cursive



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Onesided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 17:49:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4634550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sand_Cursive/pseuds/Sand_Cursive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jasper is the best. The strongest. She does not surrender.<br/>And she will never be defeated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To woo the savage beast

She was the pride of their complex. Big. Stable. _A marvel,_ they called her, and she came to understand these words as meaning _different. Better_. She towered above them, hands so large she could crush their skulls in a fist.

She was only at the academy for six days, before they brought her in. She had taken to walking through drifts of recuperating gems in the hallways, unused to accounting for other bodies in her space. She did not acclimate well.

She was special, they told her. She was here for a singular purpose; to aid in the war effort. They’d synthesized her with lofty goals in mind, imagined her leading the charge; bringing a single-handed end to the battle. They made her without understanding her at all.

The instructor they had paired her with was little more than a punching bag. She was spry and limber, but her fleetness of foot and incredible reflexes were little match for the might of Jasper’s fists. She was broken at the end of their sessions more often than not. It never occurred to Jasper to consider that she might not be able to recover, one day. She simply walked into the room to see someone else standing in its centre, and barreled headlong into a fight, no questions asked.

It was the first fight she had ever lost.

“Who are you?” She’d asked, at the end, because so worthy an opponent deserved recognition. She’d never learned the name of the last Gem, already fading fast from her memories.

She turned without looking back, exiting the room opposite the hall that Jasper had come through. “Answers are for winners.”

The words had stuck in her mind, awakening her curiosity like no other lesson had ever done. She began the next session with a question. “Why are we fighting?”

The other Gem, smaller, with less bulk, spun out of range of her arms. She was behind her thick mane of hair faster than breath, just outside her line of vision. Her morning star, glowing like a slice of water at night, collided heavily with the top of Jasper’s skull.

It was the first defeat to taste so bitter.

She emerged from her gem not two hours later, spoiling for a fight and finding none. They’d locked her in solitary confinement, an experience usually enjoyable but now utterly depressing. In their first lesson together, the mystery gem had offered her surrender in lieu of her (now obviously) inevitable defeat. Jasper had refused without words.

Surrender was for the weak. She lay back in her cell and sneered at even the concept of it. Unable to hold their own, others fearing for their lives would lay down their arms and beg for mercy. _Beg._ She would beg no one, be beholden to no one. Jasper would fight to win or die trying.

It was only five days later that it happened. She knew it was different, because there was a stranger standing in the corner of their arena. Their presence was imposing and large, but no matter how she maneuvered herself, she was always just out of sight of her peripheral vision. She growled her frustration out with every blow, until she landed her very first glancing punch against her opponent’s shoulder.

The _Boom!_ of a large clap echoed, throwing her following punch off-balance. She missed entirely.

“What’s the big idea?” She’d demanded, whirling round to finally catch the figure in her headlights.

The figure was more imposing than she had anticipated. Tall, composed, and more slender than expected, there was nevertheless a density in the air surrounding her. She seemed heavier than all matter, darker than all night, despite the glowing yellow tones in her skin. Her gem, in so far as she was looking, was not visible at all. Almost as though she didn’t have one.

“She’s strong.” The figure spoke, ignoring her entirely.

“Yes.”

“They’ve done a good job.”

A pause. “Is she everything you hoped?”

“She’s . . . perfect.” Finally the stranger approached, eyes lighting ominously in the room. “Jasper. Come with me. You -” (and here she turned to the other Gem, lingering in the shadows) “have completed your work here. You may go.”

She had turned to leave until Jasper, seized with a sudden impulse, cried, “What are you called?”

She didn’t turn around. “Covellite.”

* * *

 

She was assigned to a new elite squad being formed from the newest pools of Gems. The largest, the fastest, the smartest. The strongest. That was what they told her. “You’re strong.” She came to associate that with meaning _good._

Even without the advanced tactics and strategy of some of the other soldiers, she dominated in the training holos. She dominated in the combat ring. They had every confidence she would dominate on the battlefield - the single Gem that would lead the entire Homeworld army to victory. She could feel the weight and electricity of her power in her veins, in her gem. She was undefeated.

“Fight me,” she’d tried once, slamming a fist into the wall right beside her commanding officer’s head. She didn’t flinch.

“Why?”

“I want to see just how far I’ve come.” She could feel it, welling up inside her, the eerie, predatory hunger that spread as slow as her smile. Covellite put her text screen down, regarding her cooly from behind a single, flat goggle lens. “You think you’ve come so far?”

“I’ve had lots of practice.”

She sat perfectly still for more moments than Jasper had the patience to count. Then she stood, arms braced against the table. She was silent all the way to the combat ring.

“Standard rules, of course,” she began, pulling her morning star from her neck. Jasper’s helmet flashed on, and she grinned, baring all her teeth. The bell had barely rung before she lunged.

It didn’t matter. It was a short fight, of course. Jasper hadn’t come within an inch of her opponent before she disappeared in a flash of indigo starlight. She was struck from above on her gem, hard. She turned, fast, and tried to grab at the leg that was fast retreating. She only barely missed.

Covellite’s movements were much more graceful than Jasper’s heavy, stomping dance. She lunged and punched with such an abrupt force, like a wall of rock crumbling, tumbling to meet her opponent. Covellite had only to brush her arm to deal devastating damage.

Jasper’s last good arm came up just as the morning star delivered a blow to the side of her helmet, cracking it.

“I win.”

Jasper smiled, even as she gasped against her gem. An inch of hair littered the floor, sliced from just the tip of a single side braid. Covellite barely glanced down at it. “You have improved. Congratulations.”

* * *

 

She asked only once, out of confusion more than anything else. “Do you think I’m strong?”

“Of course.” There was no hesitation in the answer. “Why do you ask?”

“How can I be strong if I’ve never defeated you? What is strength until it’s been tested, measured?” She clenched her fists, walls already trembling in anticipation of the blows. “I’m still weaker than you!”

Covellite remained unshakeable against the face of her frustration. “You do not have to be the strongest to be the best.”

“Of course you do.” She didn’t even think about it. “That’s all there is.”

* * *

 

When they’d finally been deployed, squads of soldiers loaded onto large, bulky ships and jettisoned into space, she had felt the fire of an imminent fight blazing within her. She was so eager to get her hands on those traitorous Crystal Gems, to feel the push and give of another being fall beneath the might of her fist. She was so used to being the winner. So assured of her victory.

The individual who had first assigned her to the squad, who had first removed her from her penultimate match against Covellite, had come to see her in person to send her off. She had stood in the back, glancing over the soldiers as they marched out, her eyes only briefly meeting Jasper’s. Yellow Diamond. She knew her name now, now that she no longer had cause to wonder about it.

_You are strong,_ she had told her once, during the only (one-sided) conversation they had ever had. Jasper could remember the slant of her eyes, the angle of her body, as she had leaned on the desk between them. She could feel it, the strange wave of greed that fed off her sharp shoulders, as she had told her that she would be the pride of the Homeworld. Those words had given Jasper an arrogance that she had never managed to shake.

The landed in the dust and the fire, and it was easy, at first. She had laughed on the battlefield, had crunched with reckless abandon through the shattered remains of their enemies. The feeling of so much destruction at her hands was intoxicating.

It stayed that way longer than it did for anyone else. By the third Earth year of fighting, she had been promoted. Once, twice, more than that. The higher ups loved her reckless abandon, her love of destruction. They had hoped to channel so indomitable a spirit into something manageable. Something controlled.

They were not wrong when they said that she would be the pride of the Homeworld. She led the charge, day after day, fighting her way to the top of the ranks. Ready to cross weapons with all in her path. She was there, for the last battle.

They were supposed to retreat, of course. There was no sense in wiping out so many of their own soldiers when they could simply watch from the safety of space. There was so much carnage on the field, so many broken beyond repair. She could barely make herself back up when all she wanted was to rush headlong to the forefront and take them all on.

It was the first time in weeks that she had seen her. Covellite moved with as much grace as ever, heavily damaged and barely standing. She was blows away from retreating back within her gem. Jasper moved, hit, lunged in her direction without being aware of it. She didn’t think Covellite needed her help, but she inched her way forwards despite the orders to turn back.

She was close enough, then, to hear, “If you surrender, we will have mercy on you.”

For a moment, Jasper didn’t think Covellite had made any effort to respond. There was a pause, and then the sudden force of a sword thrust straight into a gem, cracking it beyond repair. She blinked out of existence faster than Jasper could react. It wasn’t until afterwards, mind replaying the reel as she turned heel and ran back to the ship, that she realized she had mumbled something soft and weak under her breath.

_There is no point in surrender._

She made no move to scavenge the pieces of the gem. She would simply be left here, on this dying hunk of wasted mass. She simply climbed aboard, shouldering other gems out of the way, to watch the destruction take place.

This final assault, this weapon; it had been a move of last resort. Better to wipe out the fertile planet with the traitors, then allow them to continue in this vein. The Kindergarten was to be abandoned.

Jasper could see all the little lights blink out as the Gems disappeared, one by one. They were out of range before the end, but it didn’t matter. There was nothing left on that hunk of rock.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

She wants to laugh. To have come so far and trained so hard and fought so long only to end up here. Dragged to the bottom of the ocean as half of an abomination by a wishy-washy little water Gem. Stuck on this backwater planet. She’d never expected her to be so strong.

When she had grabbed her out of the wreckage, she hadn’t thought for a moment her request would be refused. Jasper is used to getting her way; it is the truth of her life. She is strong. There is no one left who can defeat her. But to pull this sneaky little trick! The backstabbing traitorous sympathizer had more guile than she’d given her credit for. More than she had ever displayed when she had been feeding them information; their prisoner.

She had enjoyed that facet of her. Enjoyed the spimpering, cowardly little gem who had given them whatever they’d wanted without any _real_ persuasion. There was a beauty to that brokenness, to that surrender. It was a testament to her power, to her fearsome presence, and Jasper reveled in the feeling of superiority. She had been told she was better all her life, but it was even sweeter when they proved it in her presence. She was like the perfect trophy to hang on her wall, to take out and admire on listless days.

But this! This is far, far better. There is an allure in her challenge. It has been so, so long since Jasper has felt challenged. A time and a half since she’s stood on the front lines, beating and crushing and destroying. And it is so new. A struggle not with the strength of the body but the power of will.

Power and strength are not the same. She knows that, now, has finally been able to reconcile that these concepts are not always mutually inclusive. And she wants them both. She has tasted it, the feeling and completeness of this aberration, the unlimited resources at her disposal! She would be unstoppable.

All she needs to do is take control.


End file.
